Update: This post was made when passage of HB 910 was looking unlikely. While we support the bill as passed, the fact is that the law enforcement lobby convinced the named representatives to remove a part of the bill at the last minute, which almost killed it. This should not have happened, especially considering that the police unions were opposed to open carry from the start, and it is troubling that the law enforcement lobby has this level of influence. However, most of the legislators below, including Doc Anderson, voted for the bill in the end and we appreciate their support. Thus, the “Wall of Shame” has been renamed.

Why, Doc, Why?

The House rejected concurrence on HB910 Wednesday, even though the version of the bill being decided was practically the same as the one they had already passed. Basically, this happened because of two groups of people:

Anti-gun democrats who opposed the bill all along

Republicans who placed the interests of the liberal police chiefs like Art Acevedo and the police lobby (CLEAT) ahead of the interests of everyday gun owners

A concurrence vote happens when a bill passed by one house is amended or substituted in the other house. The goal is to iron out the differences between the two versions of the bill. In this case, the version passed by the House was virtually identical to that passed by the Senate, the only difference being some minor grammatical differences between the amendment added by Sen. Huffines and the original Rep. Dutton amendment. However, the representatives abused the concurrence vote to tie up a bill they had previously passed.

TX Open Carry Wall of Shame Hall of Confusion 2015

Here are the Republican representatives who voted against sending this bill to Governor Abbott and have endangered its success on the eve of Sunday’s deadline.

The surprising thing here is that with the exception of Rep. Four Price and Rep. Debbie Riddle, everyone else on this list previously voted to pass this bill with the Dutton Amendment intact on April 20th, 2015. Please keep this in mind when you call to express your disappointment.

Your representative may try to claim they couldn’t support the bill with the “no stop-and-frisk” amendment intact, but virtually all of them had previously voted for an identical bill. Except for Reps. Price and Riddle, the representatives below have abused the concurrence process. This is precisely the kind of thing that makes pro-gun voters feel they are being deceived as their bills are killed behind closed doors.